Arbutus Little League [dot] org

In 2007 we had a mission. After finishing runner-up to Rising Sun LL in the 2006 Jr State Tournament, we were not going to be denied in 2007. The returning 5 players from that 2006 team had a goal from Day 1, that nothing less than State Champs was acceptable for 2007. Those 5 plus the 8 others achieved that goal. Way to go!

In the Maryland District IV tournament held at Cardinal Gibbons High School, we faced Forest Park in a best of 3 tournament. We defeated them 14-3 in the first game behind the pitching of Eric Drechsler and John Blasy. In Game 2, we defeated them ?-? behind the complete game effort of Chris Peltz. Other highlights.

The 2007 Maryland State Junior Tournament was held in Waldorf, MD and hosted by Waldorf American Little League. The seven district winners from all over Maryland were in attendance including Rising Sun from District V. In the opening game, we defeated West Salisbury, 8-6. The following day we defeated North Caroline LL 11-7. On Tuesday night, we had a much anticipated rematch with Rising Sun. We managed to get by them this year defeating them 9-6. This put us into the championship game where we faced off again with North Caroline LL. We defeated them 5-0 in a much closer game than the score indicates. Chris Peltz pitched a complete game, 4 hitter. We are State Champs!!!!

Eleven state champs came together in the Eastern Regional Tournament held in Freeport, New Jersey. We opened the tournament with a tough loss to South Wall LL, the New Jersey State champ, 8-0. Then because of a scheduling quirk, we had to sit for 2 days until our next opportunity. In our next game against Pawcatuck LL of Connecticut, we won 6-0 with a complete game, no hit effort by Chris Peltz. It was the first no hitter at the Eastern Regional in 6 years. But we couldn’t rest on our laurels. We had another game that same day against the New York State Champ, East Meadow LL. We defeated them 5-4 in a great baseball game. The next day, we were back in action against South Wall LL in a rematch from the opening day game. This time, we got the upper hand, defeating them 10-9 in a huge come from behind win. And again, we had to play again on the same day, this time against the Pennsylvania State Champ, Greencastle LL. Despite being nearly out of pitching and dead tired from already playing 3 games in 24 hours, our guys gutted it out and nearly pulled it off. We lost 2-0 despite an outstanding pitching effort from Scott Brach.

By finishing 3rd out of 11 teams in this regional tournament, we had a tremendous run, accomplished much and have so much to be proud of. The wins by this team were the first out of state wins for Arbutus LL since our Big League team in 1979.

Postlude:
Greencastle LL (PA) was defeated in the championship game 14-0 by the NJ host district champion, Middletown LL. Middletown LL traveled to Taylor, Michigan to participate in the Junior League World Series, where they finished 3rd out of 5 teams in their pool. Pearl City LL of Hawaii won the International Junior League title by defeating the Asia-Pacific champs from Illan Central LL of Makati City, Philippines 6-2 in the championship game.

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